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2010: The Year in Review

But by far the biggest news in March, and one of the biggest stories in the gaming year, came when Activision decided it would be a good idea to fire the two guys that created one of the most successful entertainment products of all time. In a Godfather-like scene, Activision "bouncers" showed up at Infinity Ward in early March and removed Jason West and Vince Zampella from Infinity Ward, firing the pair on the spot for "insubordination." We can only imagine West and Zampella felt like that Chinese gamer that got stabbed in the head with a rusty knife for using a wall hack in Counter-Strike. But West and Zampella quickly put their newfound free time to good use, filing a (hilarious) lawsuit against Activision for hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid bonuses before signing a new deal with EA Partners and opening their own independent studio, Respawn Entertainment.

We're smirking because we just looked at our bank statements.

April brought with it the prerequisite heavy dose of game-related April Fools jokes (Firaxis' Civ V leaders as Mortal Kombat fighters was our favorite), and the off-the-wall stories continued throughout the month. Gamers spammed the Time.com polls and made the Penny Arcade guys among the 10 most influential people on Earth; a UK woman fell off of her Wii Balance Board and became a sex addict; and a Seattle locksmith spent 58 hours and a single quarter playing one marathon session of Asteroids, breaking the longest-standing record in video game history by scoring a new high score of 41,338,740 points. That's getting some serious bang for your buck... er, quarter.

One company wasn't in the joking mood. Intent on polishing its servers in preparation for StarCraft II, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the new Battle.net, Blizzard swung a legendary ban hammer, booting more than 320,000 cheaters, hackers, and online ne'er-do-wells in a digital spring cleaning of epic proportions.

While Blizzard was busy hammering cheaters, Electronic Arts continued to toil away at its WoW challenger, Star Wars: The Old Republic. In May, the publisher revealed that the BioWare-developed MMO is the
most expensive project in the publisher's 28-year history. EA wouldn't say exactly how much it has spent (and continues to spend) on the game, but the rumor mill quickly provided an answer: more than $300 million. We ran the quick numbers and discovered that The Old Republic will need roughly a zillion subscribers to turn a profit for EA.

Ha ha! This is a working $300 million station! No, no it's not.

If EA hopes to recoup its investment, it would be wise to hook what the NPD Group defined in May as "Extreme Gamers(!)" (exclamation point optional). In a study of nearly 20,000 gamers, the market research firm discovered that the average video game fan spends roughly 13 hours per week gaming. Conversely, the 4% of the gaming population that makes up the Extreme Gamer(!) category averages nearly seven hours playing each and every day, racking up 48.5 hours playing games each week. Our fingers hurt just writing that line.

The NPD Extreme Gamer report likely serves as Evidence A for UK therapist Steve Pope, the man who likened gaming to hardcore drug use, stating (with a straight face): "Spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces." Imagine what seven hours a day does? Woohoo! I'm Tony Montana!

If only Tony knew about gaming...

Ahem.

June brought us the annual E3 Expo and detailed looks at Sony and Microsoft's anticipated motion-control systems, Move and Kinect. With much fanfare, the competitors revealed the impressive tech... as well as a long list of arm- and leg-flailing games that made us wonder what all the fuss was about. Nintendo, well ahead of the game once again, gave the media some hands-on time with its 3DS and effectively stole the show. Again.

After the bluster of E3, the industry went into sleep mode for a few weeks. Movie critic Roger Ebert got the ball rolling again when he declared games can't be considered art, effectively making the intertubes explode with fanboy ire. Blizzard continued making nerds nuts in July when it declared it would remove anonymity from its official forums and require posters to use their real names. Roughly 15 minutes later, Blizzard did an about face after being bombarded by negative feedback from L33tL0rds the world over.

The industry got hotter as the summer rolled along, with iconic game designer Tim Schafer using a seemingly harmless interview with Eurogamer as a platform to call Activision CEO Bobby Kotick a "total prick" better suited to arms manufacturing than video games. Kotick responded by at first taking the high road, saying he's never met the man. But he couldn't resist a dig, adding -- in so many words -- that Brutal Legend sucked, so nyah-nyah.

There is a sitcom here somewhere.

In August, Call of Duty set yet another record when it surpassed the 20 million marker in map packs sold, leading gamers and industry analysts the world over to think out loud, "I still can't believe they fired the people who created this franchise." While Activision was swimming in Call of Duty cash, Electronic Arts found itself in hot water with its Medal of Honor reboot. The company decided it would be a good idea to make the Taliban a playable faction in MoH's multiplayer, creating a media frenzy around the industry not seen since the last Grand Theft Auto game. It's fitting, then, that Mr. Anti-GTA himself, Jack Thompson, would surface to declare banning Medal of Honor his new mission in life. EA ultimately changed "Taliban" to "OpFor," and Thompson returned to irrelevance.

The fall brought bankruptcy to APB developer and one-time industry rising star Realtime Worlds, major layoffs at LucasArts, and the departure of famed game designer Keiji Inafune from Capcom after a 23-year marriage. But it wasn't all bad news. Against all odds, perennial Vaporware Award winner Duke Nukem Forever was resurrected by Gearbox Software -- 13 years, tens of millions of dollars, and a handful of lawsuits after development on the shooter began at 3D Realms. Ironic that the news made another Gearbox game, Aliens: Colonial Marines, the frontrunner for the 2010 Vaporware Award.

For years, California has been trying to make it a crime to sell or rent "violent" video games to minors. The law has been declared unconstitutional by a number of lower courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States decided it would settle the matter once and for all. The nine justices heard oral arguments from both sides of the case in November, and their responses gave us hope that the game industry -- after a rebuilding year in 2010 that had its fair share of ups and downs -- will be on good footing in 2011 and beyond.

Now then, I hope you'll excuse me while I download content for the new sequel I just bought.